EDITORIAL: Parking plan needs serious, public conversation

Parking meters are set up in front of The McAlpin building on W. Fourth Street downtown.

It's one of those simple Cincinnati pleasures, a comfortable quirk that's part of the experience of living here. Park on a downtown street after 5 PM and it's free, no need to plug the meter. You can go to a nighttime Reds game and find a free place to park on the street, saving your money for one of those expensive ballpark beers.

But soon that might be only a good memory as Cincinnati City Hall could move toward extending the meter enforcement hours to 9 p.m. It's part of the latest Cincinnati parking plan, this one proposed by Mayor John Cranley.

The new mayor is finding that governing is tougher than campaigning. He made a campaign issue of the previous administration's parking deal, labeling it "stealing from the future." When he took office, he called a halt to that plan, and then last week, announced his own, which, in significant ways, is similar to the old one.

Cranley made a campaign issue of the original parking plan, but his own proposal shares some details with the one he campaigned so hard against in the fall.

Both plans would raise meter rates, although Cranley's plan would freeze them for five years after an initial raise.

Both plans call for more rigorous enforcement through an increase in enforcement officers.

The major difference is that under the mayor's plan, the city would not lease the parking system to a private operator, but retain management and control of the system. But by not leasing the system, the city forgoes the $85 million upfront payment it would have received in exchange for a long-term lease to a private company.

That's worth repeating: an $85 million lump sum payment to a city whose traditional sources of revenue are hardly growing, a city with serious budget and pension issues, and one in need of continued investment in economic development so it can grow its population and its revenue. Investment is essential to grow and growth is essential to thrive. One of the few ways to generate that kind of money in this no-growth era is to leverage what the city owns.

But extracting more money from the parking meters means we will pay - pay more to park and pay more in tickets. The parking meters are woefully under-enforced, but ramping up enforcement will mean more money and it will come from our pockets.

Cranley says his main problem with the previous deal was turning over control of the system to an out of-town operator. His plan maintains control in City Hall, which can respond, he says, to its citizens. It already responded to complaints from UC about the plans for stricter enforcement around campus. But the trade-off is less revenue.

The original plan actually included a dependable measure of local control. The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, the Port Authority, would have managed the system, contracting it out to private companies. The Port's board is appointed by city and county officials and the city manager or his appointee would have held veto power over changes in rates and enforcement.

And we'd venture to say that the thousands who signed petitions against the original deal care more about parking rates and enforcement hours than they do about local control.

As the mayor and city council pause now to deliberate the future of parking in Cincinnati, it would be smart to re-examine the original deal. It should be analyzed in light of the tough realities the city faces today - chronic budget deficits, slow growth, stagnant revenue.

And we should have a serious conversation about what we want our parking system to be - a way to encourage visitors to keep coming to downtown and neighborhood business districts, a way to maximize revenue, or some combination of the two. That conversation should happen in public, outside of the fever of a political campaign and with an understanding of the tough realities of governing.

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EDITORIAL: Parking plan needs serious, public conversation

It's one of those simple Cincinnati pleasures - park on a downtown street after 5 PM and it's free. But soon that might be only a good memory.